SOLHEIM, THE MAN WHO LOST HIS STATUS AS MEDIATOR TELLS LTTE WANTS TO HAND OVER WEAPONS TO A THIRD PARTY
Posted on May 17th, 2009
By Walter Jayawardhana
Sri LankaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s former peace negotiator Norway, a country which has been removed by Sri Lanka from that position after the LTTE in Oslo attacked the Lankan mission without any protection being provided by the Norwegian government said the LTTE wants to surrender arms to a third country.
But the involvement of a third country has been already refused by Sri Lanka.
The LTTE on a former occasion agreed to surrender arms , cheated , and surrendered some broken arms under the Indo Lanka agreement and went back to re-grouping and war that climaxed in the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
NorwayƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s peace negotiator Eric Solheim said that he was in touch with the LTTE and discussed about the matter. “I have been in touch with the Tamil Tigers many times today,” Norway’s Development Aid Minister Erik Solheim told Reuters. “They have made it clear to us that they are ready to give up arms to the international community.”
The LTTE has been repeatedly telling that it was not ready to surrender arms but has now said it is ready to hand them over to the international community.
According to state owned ITN correspondents remain in the battle field the troops are only fighting sporadic fights in a one square kilometre area to wipe out small number of LTTE fighters remaining.
Solheim expressed his desire for ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-independent verificationƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ of the wounded in his statement.
May 17th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Mr J ,
can someone askMr. Solhim and his band of bandits to mind their own bussiness! Did we ask him to talk to LTTE , now they want to lay down their arms when they have no arms or legs to hold the Arms!
kk